


Midfielding

by afogocado



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Humor, mentions of children sports injuries, mentions of food and drink, mentions of sports injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afogocado/pseuds/afogocado
Summary: Coach Kenobi and team mascot Boga have a lot on their plate: namely, the clumsy 10-year-olds in their football club; shit-head arch-nemesis, Arcade, who coaches the rivaling team; caring for an aging father; teaching literature to students who would rather be asleep; and most nervously, a growing soft spot for midfielder Anakin’s auntie who shows up at every game. In which Ben Kenobi is the town’s ex-footballer heartthrob, who only has eyes for the school nurse, aka his favorite player’s caretaker, aka you.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Midfielding

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: I know absolutely nothing about soccer/football and had to google everything. Apologies if I have totally ruined the sport in this fic. I also have never watched the Clone Wars, so apologies if characterizations are not on point. I just needed a handful of Jango’s sons being smol and adorable in this piece. 
> 
> Chapter Summary: In which you deal with an alarming amount of ruckus first thing in the morning at the school nurse’s station; the Naboo Preparatory School’s fall festival is in full swing, and the community has come together to celebrate the beginning of a new term; and everyone meets—and swoons over—the new soccer coach, who has big shoes to fill.

—

1

Though the school year hasn’t started yet, most sports programs _have_ and, therefore, your duties alongside them. In the few remaining weeks of the summer leading up to the September start date for the school term, you spent time being on campus and hanging around if needed to tend to students’ injuries. Most of the time, this included setting sprained ankles or broken fingers. None of the real injuries occur until the competitions with other schools begin, and even then, those injuries are from fist fights that break out between players. Setting broken fingers earned from players throwing punches were always more disappoint to treat.

But during these past few weeks, in the mornings before the boys’ soccer team practice starts, you can rely on Jango Fett’s sons to be lined up outside your office, right at 8:00.These instances are the few times that they are ever punctual. And you can count on their presence far more strongly than any ticking clock.

“Can we have candies, miss?” The shortest one, Kix, asks: always first, and always shyly as soon as you open the door to their six hands knocking deftly against the heavy oak.

And the tallest one with the straightest back, Cody, (always a bit too loudly) corrects his brother, “ _MAY_ we have candy _PLEASE,_ he means. Miss.”

“Please, Miss,” a mewling echo from the other four behind the two at the front. The ones in the back always hop up and down in excitement, all knowing that you’ll never turn them away.

“Good morning, boys,” you say, grabbing the large candy dish off the top of a nearby bookshelf adorned with fake succulents and tomes whose pages are filled with child psychology best-practices as well as physiology texts.

You may as well be the school’s doctor, after having earned your doctorate degree in nurse practitioning both physical injury and psychological services over the summer break. Naboo Preparatory School—while known for its stellar academic standards—was first and foremost _the_ school to send children with promising athleticism. Most students who spend time here go on to advanced institutions with rigorous sports programs. Naboo Prep can claim several professional athletes and even Olympians. So, a top-notch caregiver such as yourself was sorely needed. It is an important job—the most important one you’ve ever had—and you loved it and hated it. You loved it because you loved the children—they were all so interesting and bright in their own ways; and you hated it because some of the parents and guardians were so entitled and treated not only you, but the coaches and faculty very poorly whenever they didn’t get exactly what they wanted. A poor example for the children that didn’t really seem to rub off on them, thank goodness.

“Good morning, Nurse Skywalker!” The Fett boys chime—too loudly, always. But they were good boys, and their father, Jango, was a lot of people’s favorite parent. Stern when he needed to be, but generous and kind, and funny. Always so supportive of not just his children, but everyone else’s. And supportive of the school’s faculty and staff. Jango was a successful lawyer in town, and often donated money whenever the school was in need: not just sporting items, but academic as well which oftentimes gets neglected at other institutions.

You hold the plastic bowl in your arms: a sickly purple thing meant to be left out on Halloween doorsteps when no one is home to answer rings or knocks. It is adorned with dancing skeletons—not unlike the Grateful Dead’s bear conga line. Once in their line of vision and heights, small, tanned hands dive right in, grabbing at the colorful Laffy Taffy. Once they’ve cheered their thanks right into your face and ear drums, they take off down the hall, leaving your nurse’s station in the dust. You hear them screech over who wants to swap a green apple flavor for the banana, their voices blasting against aluminum lockers and painted concrete walls. And Fives shouting over the others’ calamatious, echoing voices, a terrible joke printed on the inside of his strawberry wrapper:

“HOW DO YOU GET A BABY ALIEN TO SLEEP? YOU ROCKET!!”

“Thats stupid!” Kix.

“Shut up, Fives!” Jesse.

“Not even funny!” Rex.

“I dont get it!” Boba.

“Be nice, everyone!” Cody.

And its like this, every. single. morning.

They’re supposed to be at soccer practice at this time, but apparently the new coach—who you havent met yet due to being swamped with getting everything ready for the new school year—practices grace, and never starts on time. You’ve spent the past two weeks since his appointment watching the boys run around in the morning, namely keeping an eye on your nephew, Anakin. You could pick out his sandy colored mop of hair out of everyone else’s more eccentrically colored ones out of the line up. More often than not, you’d see him sitting at the bench, his hands busy at work crafting something; or, he’d be off at the sidelines running alongside the dog that the new coach brought to every practice. Sometimes, the team would forego the soccer ball and opt for a frisbee instead and play with the dog.

You didn’t know much about the new coach, apart from what your nephew cared to share at dinner time: that he was nice, and funny, and talked to them with respect, that he was quiet even when shouting instructions and directions at Anakin and his fellow players. Sometimes, it was difficult to get Anakin to open up at all. Though he loved you very much as his aunt, you know that he’s still recovering from the trauma of losing his mother. She’d lost her battle with cancer. And while you hadn’t been Shmi’s biological sister, she always counted you as the same. And she lover how much you loved Anakin, appointing you his godparent close to the end. It wasn’t hard to love Anakin at all—nothing about him was more difficult than dealing with typical growing boy melodramas, apart from the night terrors. With time, they seemed to abate. And since joining the soccer team in these pst couple of weeks, he seemed to be having better nights. You weren’t sure if it was from the constant physical activity that finally wore him out at night, or if it was finding a string since of community with such a good batch of boys, and a positive male role model in the new coach.

You watch our your office window now, winding down after the uproarious onslaught of the Fett boys, mentally preparing yourself for the rest of the day. You and the school’s principal, Mace Windu, will be taking the lead later in the afternoon of setting up and preparing the grounds for the annual back to school fall festival. But until then, there was paperwork to fill out, and you’d watch the practice on and off when you needed to rest your eyes from squinting at the too-small font printed out in front of you.

A small figure in the distance is beamed in the face by a rogue football and you wince, just knowing that it’s bound to be one of the Fett gremlins (as they call themselves). Its been drizzling pin-prick kisses of rain all afternoon and you’re sure the little boy’s round face must sting from the wet slap. You wince for him, and begin pulling supplies out from cabinets: a cloth to wipe the mud off an inevitably tear-stained face, and another for the inevitable nose bleed: the most common of wounds to erase from faces for the elementary school’s athletes.

A larger figure—a grown man’s frame, the new coach, you’re sure—darts from the other side of the pitch and slides on his knees, stopping at the boy’s feet, cradling the small face in his much larger hands. Pats on a shoulder, and then he stands, pointing him in your direction and his hand ushering him away. The boy takes off at a jog, clutching something in his hands, and when he’s closer to your line of vision, you see that it’s your nephew and that its the usual handful of flowers in his grasp. Anakin spends many football practices weaving flower crowns for his teammates.

When he arrives, mud-stained and bloodstained, you, teasing and wanting a smile: “Anakin, you haven’t been fighting again, have you?” You frown at your nephew’s muddled face, gently taking his chin in your hand and tilting his head back. You dab at the trickle trail of blood dripping steadily from his nose.

“No, auntie.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, auntie—you can ask Coach Nobi if you don’t believe me.”

Then, a man is skidding into the nurse’s office. “Ma’am, I am so sorry—the football and the goal post—”

“You did this.” It sounds like a question to him. It isn’t for you: you’d seen the entire misfortune unfold from the window, after all.

“Freak accident,” he huffs out and you wonder if he ran all the way from the school’s playing fields. You also wonder why the nurse’s station isn’t closer to the fields…

“Broken?” the man is now asking, visibly worried.

“Do what now?” You ask, having missed his earlier words.

“Is it broken?” He repeats himself, and you think about how old and young he looks at the same time in his exceedingly short blue shorts and unnumbered jersey top. He’s grass-stained, even on his knees, and his hair is an auburn mess: a loose ‘man bun’ slowly unknotting. “Ani’s nose?”

“Oh, no. Just a massive boo boo.”

Anakin rolls his eyes at the infantilized way that you’ve described a wound he is wearing with pride: a badge of honor that will make him more interesting than usual to others.

“Auntie, this is Coach Nobi,” he tells you.

“Kenobi,” the man offers his full name, and you can’t help the way your jaw slightly drops when you get a really good look at him.

“You’re Keepaway Kenobi, aren’t you?”

His hand flies to the back of his neck, “That’s a name I haven’t heard or gone by in ages, but yeah.”

You tell him your name. You don’t tell him that most people remember the match that forced him to retire very early from professional play. Looking at his older, more matured face, it’s hard to find the young, clean-shaven boy with a mess of red hair who saved a goal, but also suffered a strange freak accident of his own that left his tibia totally shattered. Your eyes flit to his scar: bone-white and raggedly visible against the dark auburn hairs that litter his leg. You’d also noticed the way he didn’t run quite steady or linearly, and the way he kind of totters around uneasily when shifting his weight from foot to foot. It’s been years since he’s played, and even been in the media. A promising, rising star, now forgotten. He’d gotten his education, and would be replacing not only the retired soccer coach here, but also taking up a post teaching literature to all of the grades.

“Nice to meet you Miss Skywalker.”

2

Later in the day, when you and Mace are out huffing and puffing, setting up the bobbing for apples bucket and face painting booth, all the boys on the team are running the obstacle course set out on the track while they wait for the rest of the festival to be set up by the other teachers and parents. You and Mace share pointed looks with one another, hoping that the extra help does come. The Amidala triplets from the high school—Padme, Corde, and Sabe—are volunteering their time, popping the popcorn and preparing other snacks and treats and hot drinks at the larger food tent. Sabe keeps reaching out to catch leaves falling from trees when the wind decides to knock them loose, and brandishing the different colors for her sisters to cheer at her feat: copper golds; burning reds; bruised purples.

You’re uncapping the assorted paint tubes and sorting them neatly for the art teacher’s eventual arrival near the bleachers when you hear Mr. Fett conversing with Coach Kenobi and another beloved teacher and coach: Din Djarin, geography and wrestling. 

“You know what this school needs,” Jango starts after sipping at his steaming coffee cup. “A rugby team.”

Din shakes his head, watching his son—the smallest on the team—clear a hurdle on the track in one fluid movement and smiles beside himself. “School board says its too violent for this young an age.”

“They’re too little,” Obi-wan agrees with Din.

“Ah, we played that young. Didn’t we, DJ?” Jango says, clapping Din’s shoulder.

“Different time,” Din says.

“They’re just too little,” Obi-Wan says again, fingers playing in his scruffy, auburn stubble as he squints against the sun’s glare and watches the team run their laps around the track. He frowns at the one boy leading the pack, pumping his legs as though his life depended on it. “Hacker! Slow it down, son, don’t push yourself too hard!”

Hacker waves at Coach, and takes it a bit easier: a loose relief relaxes into his muscles and his pace quickly matches his teammates’.

“Don’t be too soft,” Jango says, face stern at the quick change in the boy’s form. “The game is supposed to teach these boys discipline.”

“Not being too soft,” Din says, wiping his drink’s steamed condensation from his mustache. “He’s lapped these lads twice now.”

“I don’t him to lose his breakfast over it,” Obi-Wan says, sipping precariously at his own coffee and wincing at the black bitterness and heat. It’s hot, but it isn’t good.

“Fair enough,” Jango sips again, this time an obnoxious slurping sound that all of the men smile at in good humor, like schoolboys. “No you’re right, Kenobi; these boys need someone who actually cares about them as children.”

“Not just footballers,” Din agrees, sipping at his breakfast tea blend. His eyes rove once again to his own son—called Bean—who works harder to keep up with his teammates on such little legs, and Coach Kenobi almost shouts out identical words of caution to him. That is, until one of Jango’s sons, Cody—the team captain—jogs beside Bean, patting him on the shoulder in an encouraging way until their strides match up and they seemingly float together towards the next hurdle and clear it one after the other.

“We’ll need to get a headband for Bean,” Obi-Wan murmurs, fingers still nervously tracing lines in his stubble as he takes an inventory on how each boy is moving, determining what they may need to make their practices easier and more comfortable. Bean is struggling with his longer, curly locks falling into his eyes and Coach Kenobi is worried that it seems like he’s spending more time pushing it back from his forehead with his small, chubby hand rather than paying his utmost attention to the obstacles on the running track. But he has Cody now to help guide him. Cody is a natural-born leader, and Obi-Wan respects and values that—all of the boys actually listen to Cody, and adore him.

“I swear its like that boy gets a haircut once a week, and then its back even thicker the next day,” Din huffs out, his hand pushing his own unruly dark locks back.

“Just need to get a nice buzz on,” Jango says, and making a ‘bzzz’ sound, miming an invisible pair of clippers moving from his forehead to the back of his neck. “My boys love it.”

“Your boys love it,” Din says evenly, “because it makes it easier to keep their hair dyed in those wild colors.”

Jango rolls his eyes. “Yes, their aura colors.” He watches his sons with an affectionate exasperation: all six of them with different color hair: a pastel pink (Kix); a mermaid purple (Rex); an icy blue (Jesse); a candied red (Fives); a flaming orange-yellow (Cody); and a vibrant green (Boba). “That change every week. Thank the maker that each dye is only temporary and washes out in a few days.”

Its easy to spot the Fett boys anywhere in the field, at school, and in town. What gets more difficult is remembering who is wearing which color.

The team starts racing one another over to the bleachers to come grab some water and fruit slices, and once Coach Kenobi has handed everything out (the Fett boys now fighting one another over trading apple slices for orange slices), he approaches you, tightening the bun knotted at the back of his hair.

“Hello, there. Remember me?”

“Yes, the man who maimed my nephew,” you grin up at him to show that you’re only giving him a hard time for fun and he returns a smirk.

“I never knew they let comedians complete nursing school,” his fingers in his stubble nervously hide his smile from you, and you find it endearing. “Do you need a hand? I’ve got two.”

“No, I’ve finished everything up that needs finishing on my end. We _do_ need some volunteers for the dunking booth, though.”

“The what now?”

You point the glass booth being set up behind him, and filled with tepid water from a hose.

“New guy goes first,” Din says, grinning at Obi-Wan and clapping him on his back. “Right, Skywalker?”

“That’s right.”

Coach Kenobi goes to respond to you and Din—who is trying and failing miserably to hide his glee, this good-hearted hazing he’s crafting—but is summoned once again by Jango Fett who is holding court with a group of people that has grown by several since the men had watched the team run the track.

“Coach Yoda spoiled them with good affections, and he spoiled us all with these championship wins. You’ve got some big shoes to fill.” Jango puts his arm around Coach’s shoulders and steers him over to meet some parents.

“Id like to think, physically, it would be the other way around,” Obi-Wan smiles softly at the older man—the retired coach: a wizened man in a brown pea coat and leaning against a green case—whose actual shoe size is obviously much smaller.

Everyone grows quiet, not sure how to take the sarcasm related to the retired coach’s size. Everyone looks from one man to the other, until the eldest of the two speaks up.

“Jokes, the young Coach Obi has,” the former Coach Yoda says, chuckling softly to himself. “Humorous, they are.”

“Miss Skywalker, met the new coach yet have you?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve had the immense pleasure of meeting our dear coach this morning. He sent one of the players to the clinic. He’s working these children to near-death already.”

“What happened?” A mother gasps, as though clutching her pearls. “Who was it?”

“Coach Nobi mashed my face with the football; he didn’t mean to. It bounced off the goal post and I wasn’t paying attention,” Anakin says from behind you. He’s quick at work on weaving a flower crown from the swollen dandelions plucked from the earth around your feet. He looks up at Obi-Wan, his cheek slightly bruised from yesterday’s impact, and brandishing the finished crown. “I forgive you.”

Everyone looks at Obi-Wan, murmurs of ‘ _these things happen_ ’, and wait to see him receive the crown. Instead of gently plucking it from your nephew’s offering hands, he kneels down and bows his head to be crowned.

“Thank you, Anakin.Its more than I could ever ask for.”

Then Din, again. “So, this dunking booth business?”

Coach Kenobi pushes himself to his feet, and concedes. “All right.”

“Anakin gets to throw the first ball,” Din says. “It’s only fair.”

But once Din has helped Obi-Wan into the dunking booth, and the auburn-haired man is sitting nervously, dressed in his soccer kit—without his knee-high socks now—Anakin drops the ball he’s meant to throw and rushes full steam ahead, pressing the target in with both hands. There is a yelp of surprise from inside, a reverberating, “ _fuck!_ ” from Coach Kenobi as the bottom of his seat gives out and he is plunged into the water. The kids are whooping and hollering over not just the dunk and the way it was executed, but at the surprised profanity.

Coach Kenobi surfaces, and presses himself back onto the bench, pushing his darkened and sopping hair back from his forehead and it rests in twisted curls near his shoulders. “I deserved that; my apologies for the bad word.”

“FUCK!” The Fett boys—even Cody—echo together, mouths full of cotton candy as colorful as their collective heads.

“Boys!” Jango shouts, steering them away from the booth of too much excitement and instead steering them and Anakin towards the ferris wheel.

Coach Kenobi is punished with the dunking booth for twenty minutes more and when his time is up, you help him out, wrapping a towel behind his back, and he uses the corner to dry his face. His blue eyes are much brighter this close, and you notice a spot on his face—a beauty mark—close to his right eye. “That was miserable,” he says, shivering into the towel.

“I brought you a sweat shirt,’ you offer the oversized weathered gray thing—taken from your office—and he drops the now-used towel to the ground, grabs at the hemline of his t-shirt when nobody is looking and tugs it over his still-wet head. It falls to the ground in a wetted _plop,_ and there’s just enough time before you known to avert your gaze to see his body painted with tattoos down his bicep and entire right side: flowers and birds trailing all the way down to his hip and disappearing down the waist band of his shorts. He shrugs quickly into the dry sweater and thanks you profusely.

You _think_ you look him in the eyes and say ‘you’re welcome’, but all you can see in your mind is the curve of his hip, the sparse freckles and body hair before it disappeared behind fabric once more. _Your_ fabric. And a single thought:

Oh.

Oh, no.

—


End file.
